A few questions (Prep time, source bitrate)

laer wrote on 11/21/2008, 7:03 AM

1) What is the average preparing (Disc prep without burning) for a full DVD (assuming that all source material will be re-compressed by DVDA)? My last one was estimating around 30 hours!

2) When creating the source clips to be imported into DVDA, should I put the bit rate settings up to full? (With the assumption that this gives the best quality, and that DVDA will re-compress everything anyway, and set it to an appropriate bit rate), or will high bitrates be a problem in DVDA (for the re-compression and burn, not for preview playback, which it obviously does have a problem with)? My format conversion software doesn't seem to allow non-compressed output, and I want to make sure the imported source material is as good a quality as I can get.

3) Is there a way to have DVDA re-align/set up your chapter thumbnails after you have moved them around and/or messed up their alignment and spacing? I see there's a centering feature, but seemingly nothing that takes scattered thumbnails and realigns/respaces them. The other two buttons above the centering one don't seem to do anything (not sure what I'm doing wrong with those). Also, can you specify how many thumbnails you want across, then have it create the properly aligned/spaced chapter thumbnail 'grid'?

Comments

bStro wrote on 11/21/2008, 8:38 AM

Regarding #1 and #2, my recommendation would be to "get it right" before bringing the files into DVDA -- convert your FLVs (right?) to DVD-compatible MPEG2 files so DVD Architect doesn't have to decompress them. Then your prepare time will drop astronomically. Check the DVD Architect manual / online help file for the specs it considers DVD compatible. Generally speaking, your files should be MPEG2 and sized at 720x480 for NTSC or 720x576 for PAL.

If your file is not the proper format or the proper size, then that's more work for DVD Architect. If your files are in a highly compressed format, that's more work for DVD Architect.

Your source material doesn't have to be uncompressed, but some compressed formats are less work for DVD Architect than others. Some of the newer ones like MP4 and Divx are more work -- they're not meant as an intermediary format, they're meant for delivery. They throw away a lot of information, so DVD Architect has to figure out what every frame should look like while it's preparing. The "old school" compression formats -- like Huffyuv, Lagarith, and DV -- give a more complete picture, so DVDA doesn't have to work as hard and take as long.

What converter are you using? It may not support uncompressed, but I suspect it at least will let you convert to MPEG2 at the proper settings so that DVD Architect doesn't need to re-compress or to AVI with a more suitable codec (see above) so that the compression in DVD Architect won't take so long. And you'll get a better quality product. If your converter doesn't do any of this, find a different converter. There's one called SUPER that does pretty much everything.

Edit: With all that said, 30 hours is a heck of a long time for a prepare.

As for #3, the DVDA manual / online help explains what each of those buttons does and how to use them. Look for a section called "Arranging and Moving Menu Objects." In short, the two bottom buttons center the currently selected object(s) on the page. The next two up spread out the selected objects so that they are equally spaced (this requires at least three objects be selected). The remaining buttons align the selected objects to one another (requires at least two objects be selected).

Other than that, the overall placement of objects (including how many rows / columns there are) is determined by the theme being used. If you don't like the number of rows / columns, either rearrange the objects manually or apply a theme that has the rows / columns you want. If you want to re-put everything back where it's supposed to go, re-apply the theme you're already using. But keep in mind that when you apply a theme, any layout / design changes you've made will be lost (because they're controlled by the theme). Text entries you've changed will be fine.

Rob

laer wrote on 11/21/2008, 9:28 AM

Hi, Rob. Thanks for that very detailed and informative response!

I previously was using Flash to convert the flv's to mov's (...it's all I had that would convert flv's), but I was running into bogus 'out of memory' errors with half of the clips (not sure why).

So, I grabbed the freeware 'Prism' convertor. It certainly 'works' (no errors, everything seems happy), but as I said, it doesn't seem to allow uncompresse formats... But, as you pointed out, that apparently is not necessary.

It allows for a surprisingly wide array of formats (for freeware). Which one do you think would be best:

AVI (...has a load of different codecs... much like those found in editing packages)
WMV (...only has Windows Media compression.... 8 & 9)
ASF (...same compressors)
MPG (1 & 2) <-- I guess this is what I want? Using MPEG2 compression?
3GP (H263 and MPEG4 compression)
MPEG4 <---Nope!
MOV (MPEG4 compression) <--Nope!

I would imagine the obvious choice (based on what you said) would be MPG using Mpeg2 compression.

That said, here's the options for settings. Which should I use?

Average Bit Rate: 1150 / 2520 / 4000 / 9000 (Seems defaulted at 4000)
Maximum Bit Rate: 1150 / 2520 / 4000 / 9000 (Seems defaulted at 9000)
Samplerate: 32000 / 44100 / 48000
Bitrate: A range from 32 to 384 (Seems defaulted at 128)

Again, this would be for a DVD that is optimized (by DVDA) to fit on a standard DVD (4.5gigs?)

Regarding the insane prep time... I put all the settings of the clips I converted (with Prism) to the max values. In DVDA, it (not surprisingly) played by like a slideshow... but I figured that the clips would get re-rendered anyway, so (I assumed) the bitrates, etc would be modified to appropriate settings. Again, I guess that was a mistake, as you pointed out.

So, if you could advise me on which settings (from above) I should use, that would be great!

BTW, is this 'Super' converter freeware? I guess I should purchase a good converter at some point. I imagine this type of thing will come up again!

bStro wrote on 11/21/2008, 9:50 AM

I would recommend:

MPEG2
Average: 4000
Max: 9000
Sample rate: 48000
Bitrate (this is for the audio): 192

Again, also be sure that the size / resolution is appropriate for DVD. Your FLVs are the wrong size, and if you don't correct that before bringing your videos into DVD Architect, it won't matter what format or bitrate you use, DVDA will have to re-encode (aka, recompress) them anyhow.

Yes, SUPER is freeware. Here's the download page for it. The link is near the bottom.

Rob

laer wrote on 11/21/2008, 10:12 AM

Excellent stuff... I'll grab SUPER, and try those settings.

(Heheheh... funny that on the SUPER page, there's an ad for the Prism software that I'm currently using both on the top and bottom!)

The clips are smaller than standard TV res, so I guess I'll have the converter scale them up.

I found that DVDA seems to want to re-encode stuff most of the time anyway, so I usually don't try to get it perfect anyway... but I'll give it a shot this time.

Weird... I figured correctly about what those other buttons (above the centering button) do... they just don't seem to work. I guess I'm doing something wrong with it. I do select multiple thumbnails, but it doesn't seem to unify the spacing. I'll tinker with it some more (and read over the manual again).

Oh, another question... If I redo the clips (outside of DVDA), will DVDA replace them cleanly (as long as they are in the same directory and have the same name)? Failing that, is there an easy/proper way to swap the old clips with new ones?

[Late addition: I can't get the download link... I checked the download guide, and the last page I'm supposed to get to doesn't happen... Yikes....]

laer wrote on 11/21/2008, 3:10 PM

UPDATE: Well, as predicted, even though I seemingly set the conversion (flv to mpeg2) to suite DVDA, it still wanted to re-encode the video.... No biggie, though. I expected it to.

Prep time is about 1.5 hours, by the looks of it. Everything seems to be working. Just got to see how the actual burn turns out.

The more I use DVDA, the more I am satisfied with it. Very intuitive... Anytime I think "I'd like to change this aspect of this... so I imagine you'd do it by doing THIS....", and it works exactly as expected. The interface is excellent. Tons of control over virtually every aspect, yet you can also just do a quick DVD (with settings defaulting to the most appropriate values). Just a total breeze to use.

...and I just discovered the Link Tool(?).... where it graphically shows you the navigation links (up/down, etc). Brilliant...

laer wrote on 11/21/2008, 4:19 PM

Success!! The DVD worked.

Thanks for everyone's help on this!

bStro wrote on 11/21/2008, 4:20 PM

I rather like it, too. Now and then, I see a complaint from someone about DVDA not being intuitive or something, but I don't see it.

FYI, the tool you found is called the Navigation Tool. And I don't know if you found this out yet, but it's not just for seeing the navigation links, but for setting them. Drag an arrow from one button to another and you can change what up/down, etc does from that button.

I'm still curious about why DVDA is re-encoding your converted files. If you want, send me a short clip at bstro [at] 50mail [dot] com, and I'll have a look at its properties.

Rob

laer wrote on 11/23/2008, 9:11 AM

I guess the one question still left unanswered is this:

If I redo the clips (outside of DVDA), will DVDA replace them cleanly (as long as they are in the same directory and have the same name)? Failing that, is there an easy/proper way to swap the old clips with new ones?

TOG62 wrote on 11/23/2008, 10:52 AM

Yes, it works for me. If the clips are longer than the originals you do have to move the end marker, though.

Mike

laer wrote on 11/23/2008, 11:18 AM

Ya, that's the one thing I was worried about with the 'use the same file name' method... but I guess that's not a huge issue.

Is there a way to swap clips for other clips?

TOG62 wrote on 11/23/2008, 12:59 PM

I just drag the replacement clip over the original on the timeline. If you use the clips as thumbnails or background you'll need to replace those too.

As names will also have to be changed it might sometimes be easier to just start from scratch.

Mike